UP, Up & Away! Skymasters
March 27th, 2008Filed in Comps
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On March 14 & 15 British comp climbers were treated to one of the most spectacular climbing structures ever built. Oh, and there was also a comp.
The first ever Ford Skymasters Challenge was touted as a “Gladiator-style climbing competition” and open to any takers. Even though that silly tag-line might have turned off a lot of serious international competitors the comp still saw many of the British national team stepping up to the monster.
The climbers and spectators were treated to over 38 meters of horizontal roof climbing and 100 individual moves on gigantic car-sized volumes swinging in mid-air. The Entre-Prises UK wall, if one can call it that, also featured a “Kalymnos” sector with half a dozen stalactites to weave one’s way through.
If that’s not hard enough to get your head around, picture a full-size Ford Ranger truck hanging from the roof at the end of the climb. Climbers must touch the buzzer attached to the door of the truck to win. (If that’s not awesome product promotion I don’t know what is. Ford also had trucks parked on the floor under the climbers.)
The Skymasters Challenge was held during the Ordnance Survey Outdoors Show in Birmingham, England at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC). The show usually hosts a World Cup bouldering event but this year they called up Mike Weeks of X1sports to create a climbing comp that was one of kind.
His first idea was to have a deep-water solo competition. But the cost of the pool it self would have been more than the wall. “We haven’t completely written it off but are working on a dry pool set up with technology from the movie/stunt world that may replace ropes next year.” He said in a recent Ukclimbing.com interview.
But this year he settled for arguably the most original wall ever designed.
The Setters
So who would step up and set routes on a monster like this? Enter: Steve McClure and Percy Bishton. These two long-time setters combine the elements of yin (McClure’s route ability) and yang (Bishton’s bouldering mind) to come up with routes that can match the extreme nature of the Skymasters wall.
McClure told Routesetter.com before the setting began “The whole route will be a roof essentially, so pretty pumpy - not sure what it’s gonna be like setting on it, bloody hard work I guess!!” We can only imagine. This is quite possibly the steepest, longest artificial wall ever to need routes set upon it. However we were unable to get a report from McClure or Bishton to find out how the setting actually went – so we will indeed have to rely on our imaginations.
In a Ukclimbing.com interview event organizer Mike Weeks said the routes would be ““Up to 7b on the Friday for the general climbing world to compete and then national standard routes on the Saturday - 8a for men and 7c (ish) for women.”
We’ll have to take is word for it. No matter what the grades finally ended up, the routes did the job with one male and one female getting to the final hold…er final truck and walking away with £1200 of the £3000 total purse.
What we don’t have to imagine are the routes. Check out these shaky videos of the men’s & women’s routes.
Dan Bradley
Over 9 minutes of Beth Monk.
Even though the organizers were only hoping to put on a good show with a competition thrown in; next year the idea is to make it a more serious affair with international climbers showing up. My humble advice - get rid of the Gladiators.
Here are the results:
Men
1.Dave Barrans
2. Drew Haigh
3. Tony Musselbrook
Women
1. Micheala Tracey
2. Leah Crane
3. Beth Monks
March 27th, 2008 at 9:36 am
that is something that could be sold to ESPN. unfortunately (or fortunately) that is what competitive climbing needs. something to bring in the layman. something to bring in the fatasses watching ninja warrior (love that show).
if we had that type of event at the xgames, people would flock to see it, and if it was done with the same walls as the UK event, without ropes, over water, it would be one of the hottest shows at the games.
March 27th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Word! When the press releases went out to the media about Skymasters many thought it was a joke. But it’s plain to see that even though the format was basically the same as other comps and the climbers were not world renowned; the comp was still a huge success.
What I like about Skymasters is that they didn’t mess with the climbing. One still had to be a good climber to win. No party tricks needed to win. They essentially put on the same play on a new stage and the crowd loved it.
It’s nice to see there are still some people out there willing to think creatively and take a chance to put on great events. More comps like this will undoubtedly change competitive climbing for the better.
March 27th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
That is what I am talking about. Totally out of the box. I would have had the climber actually open the door of the Ford, get in and honk the horn.
I would still liket to see a little more dynamic nature on or between the walls. But think of the forerunning. Lower the truss to the ground and boulder it.
April 14th, 2008 at 10:11 am
This was a hard comp to set, and we couldn’t do all the things we wanted to do as the organisers were pretty strict on ’safety issues’. I wanted the competitors to traverse the truck, climb in through the door and honk the horn (which would be linked to the stopwatch to stop the clock)! The organisers had no problem with climbers pulling on plastic holds, but wouldn’t allow climbers to pull on the fenders, etc on the Ford Ranger in case it fell apart….apparently the Ford Ranger was not designed to be climbed on! Me and Ste set most of the routes on the floor, before the truss was winched up. We quickly realised that a route with 90 feet of horizontal climbing after 45 feet of ascent was horrifically tiring for the competitors (even though Ste could throw laps on the route on demand) so had to tone the difficulty down quite a lot. The finals route was probably only 5.13b, but a huge route that delivered a unique pump that I have never experienced on plastic before. Not good for a bouldering specialist like myself! My thoughts on the whole thing was that it was a cool comp - very enjoyable to watch for the crowd, which is just what the sport needs. We added a time limit to make the climbers go fast - a concept I like to think of as ’speediculty’. A slighty easy level of difficulty so that you have to dispatch quickly in order to win - no more ties for positions any more as if 20 people send the route they will be split on time. You never know, it could catch on…. The organisers were well pleased with the event and I’m sure it will be run again next year - possibly bigger and better though! If i could, I’d build the horizontal section, hang it 20 feet above a big water tank, and host the worlds first deep water speediculty comp.